Where The Heart Is
by Gandalf3213
Summary: A collection of one-shots revolving around Sweets as his relationship evolves from a nuisance psychologist to a member of the Jeffersonian team. Chapter 5: As if the summer couldn't get any worse, Sweets's father gets out of prison bearing a grudge.
1. Air Ducts

**A/N: We've loved Bones since the beginning, but have never really felt the need to write about it until now. Watching the whole series a second time through (Netflix is awesome) makes us realize that there's some stuff missing. How did Sweets go from being accused to murder to a baby duck? Plus, we just love beating on our favorite characters.**

**.***.**

_"Grief is the price we pay for love." **Elizabeth II**_

_**.***.**_

"Agent Booth, we need you over here!"

Booth wiped his sleeve across his forehead, taking off at a jog in the direction of the newest yell. Here in this disaster, it seemed like his name was being called every few minutes, as one junior agent or another asked him about proper procedure. He didn't mind acting as a mentor to these younger guys, and was flattered that they felt they could confide their difficulties getting used to the process in him, but if one more kid screamed his name from across the yard…

And he wasn't in a great mood to begin with. On one of his precious few days off – a day he'd been planning on spending with Parker at the zoo – all the FBI agents available had been hauled in when the ceiling of Whispering Willows, a loony bin, had collapsed, freaking out the mental patients and causing chaos as crazies and their doctors tried to get out of the structurally unsound building.

Luckily, they'd gotten almost everyone out, thanks to an air duct and some pretty small agents that ferried patients back and forth. Doctors were delivering sedatives to the more distraught patients, and the shrill screams that had chilled Booth to the bone when he first arrived were thankfully fewer and further between.

"What is it, Agent Rossi?" He asked, pulling up short at the air duct. "I thought we had all the patients out."

"Yeah. He's the last one." The kid shoved a thumb in the direction of a lost-looking young man shaking in the huge arms of a nurse. "But now the guy's stuck and he's asking for you."

What? Booth didn't know anyone crazy enough to be at Whispering Willows, let alone ask for him. "A patient?"

"Naw, the shrink who was helping us out. Name's…aww, I forget. Hey kid," Rossi called into the duct, so loudly that Booth winced as the voice bounced off the metal walls. "What's your name again?"

"Lance Sweets." Came an achingly familiar, pain-strained voice that literally brought Booth to his knees. He knelt in front of the air duct, trying to see down into the darkness.

"Hey, Sweets." He called, and if the military had taught him anything it was how to keep his voice relaxed and calm even when his heart rate had suddenly sped through the roof. Why was he not informed that the FBI's wunderkind psychologist was in the building when the ceiling collapsed? "Guess you won't be doing any outswork outside the FBI anymore, huh?"

"Hey, Booth." The voice was weaker, if possible, and frayed with pain and fatigue. For a desperate second Booth sized up the air duct and glanced at his own broad shoulders. No way he himself was fitting in there, but that didn't mean he couldn't try. "I heard you were around here somewhere."

"Yeah. Listen, kid, you gotta get out of there before I can help you. I don't know if any of my agents can fit in a tunnel this small."

There was silence, and for a terrified second Booth was sure that Sweets had passed out, then… "I'm…not sure I can move that far."

"How hurt are you?" Booth called, even as he turned to Rossi and lowered his voice. "Get me a flashlight, huh? And some rope. I don't think he's coming out under his own power." Rossi took off and Booth leaned into the duct as far as he could. "Sweets? Talk to me!"

But there was no answer.

.***.

Sweets was stuck in his head, trying desperately to block out the pain that was threatening to overwhelm him. After the ceiling collapsed, Carreen and Thatcher, the UFO nuts, had been sure that it was aliens coming to eat their brains, and, worse, that Sweets was an alien. They were the ones who had taken one of the twisted bars and stabbed him in the side with it….

And then the air duct, the thing he had miraculously seen through the dust and debris, was like their safe haven. Luckily, the patients that had been in group therapy that day were all thin wisps of things that could crawl through the tunnel easily, and with the help of three doctors and four nurses, they were able to corral the nine mental patients into the dark by use of force and subtle threats.

He was almost at the end of the air duct before he remembered Stanley, the nineteen-year-old who liked to hide in cabinets, who definitely was not ahead of him, on the way to safety. He went back, running on adrenaline and sheer will, sliding back out of the tunnel and crawling over to the cabinet.

Stanley had shot out like a bullet when the door to his hiding place was opened, and then weaved deftly between the wreckage and rubble, hopping into the air duct and motioning Sweets over to him. "C'mon, c'mon, they're coming!"

Who _they_ were was anyone's guess, but Sweets was in no position to disobey an order to get out of a collapsing building. He pressed a hand against the hole in his side, hyper-aware of the ruby drops of blood he was leaving behind, a breadcrumb trail of pain. "Go on, Stanley!" He called, climbing with difficulty into the duct.

And then Stanley was yanking on his arm, probably only thinking he was helping, but crazy people, especially crazy people who think they're being attacked, are not known for adjusting how much force they use. Stanley pulled _hard_, and Sweets could hear the *pop* of his arm, loud like a gunshot, as it slid out of its socket.

That was the last straw. Stanley, good deed done, was banging off ahead, screaming about Them and Their Plan To Kill Him, leaving Sweets behind, adrenaline wearing off in the face of this new pain. He tried to crawl forward, knowing that at the other end was help and safety and, most importantly, pain medication, but he could not force his body to go those last hundred feet.

Now, Booth's voice was going in and out, like a badly tuned radio, and he knew that he should answer him, if only to keep the agent from worrying about him, but he couldn't bring himself to speak, and even the thought of crawling a little further made his stomach roll. He couldn't make it, not now…maybe in a few hours, after he had a chance to rest….

And all the time, blood spilled out from his side, coating the ground beneath him like the grains of sand in a timer, telling him that time was running out.

.***.

As the silence stretched on, Booth his worry climb like bile in his throat. "Sweets? Answer me. Sweets!"

"Agent Booth!" Rossi was back with the flashlight, an even younger agent at his side. This kid was tall and thin, and something about his face and the way he hunched his shoulders reminded Booth of the man that was currently stuck in the tunnel in front of him. "This is Geller. He volunteered to go in after the shrink."

"The guy's a hero." Geller piped up, his eyebrows knitted in worry. "If half the stuff the docs are saying about him is true, then he saved everyone in there. Damn shame he's the only one who got really hurt in all this."

"Yeah." Booth ground out, unwillingly relinquishing his spot in front of the air duct for the smaller agent, trying to wrap his head around the concept of geeky, mild Sweets being a hero. "Let me just tell him you're coming. Sweets!" He yelled this last word, a plea in the syllable. "Sweets!"

"Wha'?" The broken question came back, soft and pain-ridden, but this confirmation that Sweets was as least still well enough to talk made something small and warm bubble in Booth's chest.

"Someone's coming in for you. He'll help you out. Don't fight him, okay? He's one of the good guys." Booth knew all too well the instinct to lash out if you're injured, the propensity for the human brain to perceive help as enemies. Sweets deserved a fair warning, at least.

He didn't expect the next thing to come floating out of the dark tunnel to be even more frightened. "No, please…no…"

The fear in those words froze Booth to the spot, and he caught the worried looks of the two Junior agents next to him. What exactly was going on with Sweets in there?

.***.

The very thought of someone touching him right now made Sweets let out a very unmanly whimper of pain. He had not felt like this since those awful first years…and those were memories that carried with them the haze of childhood, and even excruciating pain is mellowed by years. He hadn't felt this pain in so long it was almost like he was feeling it for the first time.

_Cowboy up_. He thought to himself, his father's favorite expression (birth father, not his dad, not the Sweets' who had taken him in and saved his life) _You know that this isn't enough blood to die from_.

And, indeed, if he let himself become detached, clinical (and, God, separating himself from his body relieved the pain at least a little, and he was able to think rationally again) there was less blood under him than Before, than that time when he'd been beaten and left in the closet to die. _That_ had been a lot of blood. This was…merely a flesh wound.

Great, now random Monty Python lines were coming to him in the middle of a potentially life threatening (and very, very painful) situation. He was definitely going into shock.

Still, he had enough presence of mind to remember Booth's promise that someone was coming in for him, and he knew that he didn't want that. Somehow, some way, he had to make it those last hundred feet (and it might as well be a hundred miles, for all Sweets could overcome them. His body was drenched in sweat, and his limbs were so tense with agony that event he thought of moving them, or rubbing them against anything at all, made phantom pains shoot up his limbs)

"I'm coming out." He called, the call more of a whisper, a groan. He pushed out with one leg, thrusting his hand against the wound, _into_ the wound, gritting his teeth….but it didn't work. He yelled out anyway, pushing again, arms flailing, his body beating against the close walls of the tunnel, his shoulder jarring, hurting, searing pain with every impact…another push, another, and there was a light now, and a silhouette that was so _Booth_ that the next cry Sweets gave was a little moan of relief.

He was within arm's length when he passed out cold, blood still dripping from his side.

.***.

Booth hadn't been able to see the damage until now, not really, but then suddenly Sweets was _there_, gasping for breath, eyes wide with pain and warm with relief Sweets recognized Booth sitting at the end of the tunnel like he'd promised.

When the kid passed out, Booth was able to just get his arm in to pull him out the rest of the way. The whole time he'd been thinking to himself that maybe it wasn't that bad, maybe the kid was just coughing up smoke or had twisted his ankle. When he pulled, he pulled on the arm that was dislocated, and the memory of grabbing the arm and having it come off of Sweets body at a 90 degree angle, with the psychologist totally limp behind it, would have Booth waking up in a cold sweat for weeks to come.

And then, when he finally, finally got Sweets (Sweets, who was now being called a hero, and what's up with that? Who said that the kid got to go and risk his life?) out of the air duct and onto solid ground…that's when he noticed the blood, glistening accusingly on the metal lip of the building, staining Sweets's skin.

"Oh…" That was Rossi, who had done the same route to the FBI Booth had, with a tour in Afghanistan where you see the product of IEDs and gun fights and torture. And he was surprised by this blood…

"Get a medic!" Booth snapped at him and the other kid, the one who was supposed to drag Sweets out before he somehow made it on his own power, a feat that Booth will never overlook, never forget.

Now, he just had to keep the young man alive until the cavalry arrived. "Hey, Sweets…" He shook the body slightly, sitting cross-legged on the hot ground, one hand pressed to his carotid artery, where he could feel the butterfly pulse of his heart, the other cradling Sweets's body like he was his eight-year-old son and not an accomplished grown man.

"'Sup, Booth?" Sweets said, cracking a small smile. And Booth loved him for that.

"Just a ceiling collapsing. Pretty boring day, actually." He had to keep Sweets awake. With blood loss like this, shock was a real fear. And Sweets's eyes were rolling back into his head, showing the whites. He jostled the kid again, eliciting a mostly-muffled scream this time. "I'm sorry…it'll be okay…I'm sorry…" he didn't know what he was saying. He moved his hand from Sweets's throat to the wound on his belly.

"Hey, talk to me, kid." Booth said, pressing hard against the wound to staunch the bleeding, to shock Sweets enough to stay awake. "What were you doing in there, huh? I thought you were FBI property."

To his credit, Sweets was fighting for a semblance of normalcy. He could have easily succumbed to the pain, to the bliss of the blackness that would carry him away from his ruined shoulder, his bleeding body. Instead, he fought for words, for a calm, controlled voice. "There are some people who appreciate psychology, Agent Booth…and they are not found in the FBI."

Well, that went a long way in making Booth feel like an ass. It made sense, of course…after constantly being teased, berated, criticized for his chosen profession, going to a place where shrinks actually helped put people back together must be rewarding. More rewarding than working with a sarcastic FBI agent and an emotionally stunted squint.

"Yeah, well…" He had to think fast, had to find a way to keep Sweets here for another few moments. "You didn't have to play hero. You could have gotten out yourself."

There was sincere puzzlement in the younger man's eyes. "One of my patients was left behind."

"A rescue crew would have gotten to him." Booth pointed out, pressing against the wound again. His hand was coated with blood already, and Sweets's face was getting paler by the second.

That was when Booth's heart felt like it was going to pound out of his chest. He could really lose Sweets here, in the nation's capitol, on safe soil. A young man could really die in his arms right now, a man that Booth didn't know he cared for so fiercely until just this moment.

"I needed to help him." Sweets said, hand fisting in Booth's shirt, leaving a bloody print on his regulation whites. "He was counting on me."

_He appreciates me_.

The words weren't said but Booth heard them anyway, loud and large in the breathless space between them, in the blood that ran from Sweets's side. This nameless patient appreciated what Sweets did, the fact that he put his heart into every one of his patients, the fact that Sweets loved them all so fiercely he couldn't bear to see them falter if he could help it.

"It's okay." Booth said, watching as Rossi ran back towards him, ambulance trailing behind him. "You did good, kid." Which was enough like _I appreciate you_, enough like_ don't die, Sweets, _enough like _I love you, man_ that maybe it counted, maybe it was enough to keep Sweets hanging on despite the pain and badness of the world.

Maybe it was enough to keep him alive.

.***.

**Okay, so this will be maybe five or six one-shots long. A lot of Booth and Sweets stuff (because, really, there has to be a reason that Booth ragged on the guy in season three and went for him for advice in season 4. We're missing some stuff here).**

**Anyways, reviews are always and eternally appreciated. **


	2. Birthdays

_Wishing is merely a quiet way to spend one's time before the candles are extinguished on one's birthday cake. **Series of Unfortunate Events**_

_**.***.**_

If it hadn't been in that awkward time between finding out that Zack – socially stunted, intelligent, rational Zack – was a murderer and everyone coming back to the Jeffersonian (Sweets thought this comeback really started with the Finger in the Nest case, when Booth and Brennan got back from the UK) then maybe his birthday would have been different. But it was in that awkward time. And it was one of the worst birthdays Lance Sweets could remember.

He didn't even realize it was his birthday until after he had spilled hot water on his hand and stood over the sink, cursing as the irritated red skin stung under the cool stream. "I'm getting old, Pru." He said to his silky black tabby, Prudence, who sat on the lip of the sink and watched him douse his burn. The cat blinked at him slowly and he turned away hurriedly, trying to forget that this time last year he was talking on the phone with his parents.

They had died right after his birthday, one right after the other, and he'd thought the pain in his heart had faded months ago. Working with the FBI and being busy twenty-seven hours a day helped speed the grieving process along. But the memory of the early-morning telephone call he received annually, wishing him a very happy birthday, brought a sudden wetness to his eyes. _Because of the pain_, he lied to himself, filling Pru's dish and patting her head before heading out, burnt hand stuffed into his pocket, determined to forget the naked affection he'd heard in his parent's voice a year ago today.

If he was to forget about his birthday, the best place to do it was at the Jeffersonian. As a recently accused murderer, a person who, as he was reminded constantly, wasn't really a part of the team at all, something as meaningless as a birthday could pass by unnoticed. Particularly if he didn't tell anyone.

"Morning, Sweetie." Angela said, smiling warmly at him as he walked into the lab, just to make sure there was no hot case he'd missed. He used to think that 'Sweetie' was just another play on his surname (which had certainly not helped him navigate the terrors of high school) before he realized that the artist called everyone from Booth to Hodgins 'Sweetie.'

"Hello, Angela." He said, flashing her a quick smile. He held open the door for Hodgins, coming in behind him, and waved as Angela sped away from him, heading in the direction of Cam's office.

"That looks painful."

Sweets nearly jumped out of his skin. He didn't know that Hodgins was still standing there, and he laughed a little at his over-reaction, looking at his hand. "Yeah. My cat spilled the hot water this morning."

"A likely story." Hodgins said, smiling, eyebrows raising suggestively. He laughed when Sweets blushed, which had been the whole point. "C'mon. I got some stuff for burns around here somewhere." Hodgins took off, just expecting Sweets to follow. "There's so many experiments around here…I mean…there used to be…"

They stopped at one of the outer rooms and Hodgins rummaged in one of the compartments for only a few moments before he found the First Aid Kit.

The silence was too much. Sweets never liked to let silence linger for too long. Too many emotions could be bottled up there. "Dr. Hodgins, if there's anything you want to talk with me about…."

"Thanks, kid, but I think I'll go find a grown-up doctor if I want to talk about my emotional baggage." Hodgins muttered, digging through the kit. He didn't catch Sweets's wince - would anyone ever see him as anything other than a child, a nuisance? But he carefully schooled his features by the time Hodgins looked up.

"Here." Hodgins said, flicking out a hand to grab Sweets's wrist. An innocuous gesture to be sure, just a way of steadying the hand he would be putting the soothing cream and antiseptic on. What he didn't expect was Sweets's sudden reaction. For that matter, neither did Sweets.

"Don't," Sweets growled, jerking his hand away protectively, half-forgotten memories of broken fingers and large, cruel hands mixing with the safe fluorescent lights and surprised, open face of Hodgins.

"Dude, I was just going to…" Hodgins began awkwardly, shifting his weight. "It's not like I was going to break your hand."

Sweets's laugh was forced, too high even to his own ears, but short enough to help alleviate the tension a little bit. "Duh. I know. Umm….yeah. I gotta go." He was already backing away, neck and cheeks blazing red with embarrassment. Freaking out over so harmless a situation? What was he, eight? Must be the whole birthday/dead parents/angst thing. And he so didn't need this if he was attempting to seem like an adult.

"What about the cream?" Hodgins asked, confusion and concern rising up his throat like bile. For a moment, that open, embarrassed, _young_ face reminded him of another young guy, one who used to participate in the very experiments that made burn cream a necessity.

"It's not that bad." Sweets assured him, backing out. But the entomologist knew he was lying. As the shrink turned, Hodgins literally caught him red handed.

.***.

"Sweets!"

All he wanted to do was get done with the piles of profiles he'd promised four different FBI departments, get lost in the cases, and then see if anyone at the Jeffersonian or another one of his psychologist friends wanted to go out for a couple of drinks, because if Sweets didn't drown his sorrows he was going to be seriously angsty.

But it seemed like this day had something else in store for him, and how could he say no to Booth? He smiled warily, because when Booth was rushing around the corridors like this it usually meant a pretty gruesome case. Or relationship problems. Usually with Dr. Brennan. "What's up, Agent Booth?"

Booth pulled up a foot in front of Sweets, excitement gleaming in his eyes. "We have the chance to nail this scumbag, Sweets. But I need your help."

Despite himself, Sweets felt a smile tugging up the corners of his mouth. Typical Booth. He was so wrapped up in his cases he forgot that some people he talked to had absolutely no idea what he was working on at any given moment. But he had learned to just go with it – he'd pick stuff up on the way. "What can I help you with?"

"The usual." Booth said, already moving away, trusting Sweets to follow him. "Watch the interrogation. Do your psychic thing."

"Psychologist and psychic are very different things." Sweets pointed out patiently. "But I will inform you of any unconscious physical manifestations of guilt that I catch in the accused, if that is what you are asking."

"I thought my way of asking was less…squinty." Booth muttered, half-smiling at the younger man. And Sweets thought that maybe this day wouldn't be so bad after all.

.***.

He was in the corridor leading to the interrogation room, Booth right by his side, when it happened.

Clyde Simmons, the guy coming down the hallway was in jail awaiting his trial. The FBI was running the show – a federal crime meant a federal case, and even lawyers would bend when Booth volunteered to be the one at interrogations. He was known for getting criminals to implicate themselves by firing well-worded questions. What most people didn't know is that Lance Sweets had no small part to play in this process: it was he who usually told Booth exactly which questions to ask.

Sweets was just about to duck into the small room he stayed in while Booth did his thing with the subject, and he had to admit that he wasn't really paying attention to the handcuffed criminal flanked on both sides by agents. He was thinking about the timbre of his father's comforting voice on the phone last year, wishing him a happy birthday and telling him, as he said every year, how proud he was of the man Lance Sweets had grown to be.

It was in that instant, with the memory of his father's words caught in his head and on his lips like a song that you could never forget, that the criminal chose to get the hell out of Dodge, or at least go down in a blaze of glory.

Leaping forward, quick and agile as a jungle cat, he slammed Sweets's head against the wall hard enough for him to see stars and then pulled him away, using his handcuffs to choke the air out of Sweets's body.

Definitely not the best birthday he'd ever had.

Sweets clawed desperately at the chains, eyes already tearing up with the pain and sudden, terrifying lack of oxygen. But a sensitive nerd who had whisked in and out of offices his whole life was no match for a hardened criminal, and after ten seconds…twenty…the lack of oxygen made his resistance even more pitiful.

Booth was talking, and Sweets tried to focus on the agent, watching his eyes as they stayed focused on Clyde Simmons (who, Sweets was now thinking, almost certainly killed those poor strangers). Maybe it took a behavioral psychologist, or maybe it took someone who knew Booth very well, to see the minute flicks of the man's expressive eyes, the tightening of his mouth, the way his hands didn't waver for an instant as he pointed the gun directly at Sweets.

Blood pounded in his ears, making it impossible for Sweets to hear what anyone was saying, though Booth's expression suggested that he was yelling, screaming at the guy. It didn't matter now. Forty-five seconds in, his vision was being clouded by blackness and he felt himself losing feeling in his legs. He wondered, if he fell unconscious and his body slackened, would Booth be able to get a shot off? He hoped so. Even if Booth hit him with the bullet, at least that death would be better than this excruciating agony he was in now…

And suddenly the weight behind him was gone, but the chain around his neck caused him to tumble with the now-dead felon, digging harder into his neck and disorienting him further. He could only move his limbs feebly, trying desperately to draw in oxygen and panicking when he found that he was like a fish without water. Even with the chain removed, he couldn't breathe.

There was an hand jerking him now, pulling him roughly from the dead embrace of a criminal. Booth's face was inches from his and still Sweets's mouth was open in a parody of a scream, eyes frantic, lips tinged a delicate, terrible blue.

A hard whack on his back, and suddenly his bruised and battered throat could find a way to suck in a little oxygen. He sat like that, on the floor a foot away from a dead man, for seconds, minutes, Booth crouched next to him, his hands hovering, concerned, in front of Sweets's throat.

An ambulance was called, SOP for this situation (and, later, Sweets would marvel that there was a Standard Operating Procedure for even this specific scenario) and they looked at Sweets's throat worriedly. The chain had left a bruise that would get darker before it faded completely a month from the incident. At a few places, the skin had even broken from where the chain chaffed as the two men fell to the ground. To these the EMTs could apply antiseptic and Band-Aids, but little else.

"I don't need a hospital." Sweets croaked, realizing too late that opening his mouth and letting out the harsh sound that was now his voice was probably the worst way to avoid an ambulance ride. But Booth must have seen something embarrassed and fearful in his eyes, and he waved the young paramedics away and wheedled his way out of filling out the official report, using Sweets as an excuse.

"I could have gotten back to my office just fine." Sweets pointed out, and Booth raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"You sound like you're on death's doorstep. And it wouldn't be your fault if you're a bit shaky. A man tried pretty damn hard to kill you today."

"He didn't." Sweets reminded the older man. "My father used to say 'all's well that ends well.'" Even this brief mention of his father made Sweets's eyes sting.

"Just lay off that throat, kid. You heard the doc. Try to avoid talking for the next couple of days."

They had reached Sweets's office, and Sweets put his thumb and index finger together in an O for A-OK, following the no-talking rule to a T. This is where he thought that he and Booth would part ways, and he was already revising his earlier decision to try to go out tonight. After the excitement of the day, he really wanted to spend his birthday with Pru and NCIS reruns.

Of course, though, life had to go and throw a kink into even those modest plans, because Theresa, a lovely nineteen-year-old intern who played secretary for four or five people in the Bureau, bustled forward at the moment with a card and potted plant. "Happy Birthday, Dr. Sweets!" She said, frowning slightly when she noticed the bruises, but Theresa, who had been raised in a stoic New England family, didn't intrude on other people's business, even if they were bruised and battered. "I noticed that you don't have much green in your office, and this little bonsai tree doesn't need much watering. I hope you like it." The girl, God bless her, bit her lip, looking worried that she'd overstepped her bounds.

"Thank you, Theresa." Sweets said, breaking the doctor's rule of not talking and not really caring. Theresa was the first person to comment on his birthday all day – how she even knew was anybody's guess – and Sweets was surprised and touched by her gesture. "The plant is beautiful."

And it was. It looked like a tiny tree, complete with branches and leaves, and Theresa had used tiny colored rocks to spell out the three Christian virtues of FAITH, HOPE, and CHARITY beneath it, leaving the fourth side for a smiley face.

With the tree and card in one hand, it was hard to give the girl a hug, but Sweets did, so overwhelmed he was by this unexpected gift. Theresa smiled as she broke away from Sweets, pushing her red hair back behind her ear. "See you tomorrow, Dr. Sweets, and have a really great birthday."

Sweets watched her until she turned down the next corridor, not even noticing the tears in his eyes until a hand clapped him on the shoulder. He jumped, startled at the unexpected touch, and sent the card and bonsai into the air.

"Jesus," Booth muttered, grabbing for the plant and catching it before it hit the ground. "You don't want to break that." He swiped the card from off the floor and handed it to Sweets, who took it without looking Booth in the eye.

"Okay," Booth said slowly, a smile in his voice, "I get not telling anyone about your birthday if you're turning, like, fifty-two. Who wants to be reminded that you're that old? But since you're turning…what? Thirteen?...I think we really ought to do something special."

Sweets gestured to his throat, and, thinking fast, made a few quick signs that he'd learned ages ago, when he was six and not speaking to anyone (and wasn't _that_ a fun time to think about on your birthday?) He didn't know if Booth knew ASL, but…

Booth smiled and, laboriously, asked with his hands if Sweets wanted to go out for drinks. "No hard liquor, though. I don't know what the stuff can do for your throat and besides -"

"I know," Sweets croaked, "I'm not old enough to drink."

Booth grinned and nodded, eyes affixed to the bruises on Sweets's neck. "Those still look pretty bad, kid. You sure you're good to go?"

Truth? His throat felt like tiny pieces of glass had been embedded in it, and breathing was damn hard to do, and he knew that his neck must look like something out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but he was happy just to be doing what he'd wanted all day: going out for a couple of drinks on his birthday.

Booth led the way into his office, putting the tiny tree on the windowsill and talking aimlessly about inviting the Jeffersonian squints and finding a Batman birthday cake for the thirteen-year-old.

And, even though it had started out as a pretty bad day, and had only gotten worse, Sweets looked from Booth to the plant to the card, still clutched in his hand, and thought that, perhaps, this hadn't been such a bad day after all.

.***.

**We heart Booth and Sweets int he straightest way possible. **

**Anyways, please review.**


	3. Inferno

_Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. **Ambrose Redmoon**_

_**.***.**_

He almost didn't believe the flames when he drove up to his apartment.

They were small, dancing things that Sweets knew would turn into a raging inferno in…oh, perhaps thirty seconds. A minute, on the outside. He leapt from his car, saw a man standing on the street with his cell phone out.

"Call 9-1-1!" Sweets yelled to him.

"Already did!" The man called back, eyes widening when he saw where Sweets was going. "Hey! Don't go in there! Hey!"

But Sweets was already inside, mind a blur. He was thinking of his cat, Pru, the same cat he'd had since he was eighteen and leaving the safety of his parents, the cat that always reminded him of his father's smell and his mother's smile and of home. He was thinking of the photographs he had of them, the few he had slipped between the plastic of a scrapbook. He was thinking of a little girl with wide eyes who lived on the floor above his, whose mother usually worked late…

And suddenly he was flying up the stairs, past his apartment, up more stairs. There it was – the faint sobs of a very young, very scared little girl.

Flames licked up the staircase, chasing him as he ran into the apartment. He coughed, then wrapped his tie around his mouth, hoping to block out the ash. He gazed helplessly around the smoke-clogged apartment. Where would a scared little girl hide?

Three cabinets and two closets later, Sweets's lungs were burning and his eyes watered as they tried to get rid of the irritants. The soft whimpers had stopped, but it was far from quiet. Remembered campfires from his youth came back to him, and Sweets mused, as he sunk to his knees, that the roar of the flames while camping beside a lake could not even be compared to the devastating fire raging around him.

And then she was there.

Sweets dragged the unconscious girl out from under a bed, turning back towards the door before he could watch the pink flowered comforter go up in smoke. He cradled the girl in his arms, thankful that she weighed only forty pounds, and covered her as best he could as he darted back through the flames.

It was all very surreal, racing back down the steps, feeling his hair and skin being licked by flames and caring only for the small weight in his arms. He prayed that this little girl in a tiny blue dress and yellow shoes would be alright.

The early evening air felt amazing, and the sudden shift from breathing pure ash to breathing wonderful _oxygen_ made him cough hard. Eyes wide, he looked for someone to help him.

The man who had called 9-1-1 was still there, and he was racing towards Sweets, taking the girl from his arms. "The fire trucks are on their way. Can you hear them? Are you okay, man? I couldn't believe it when you ran in there, I thought you were a goner. You okay? You look pretty beat up. Hey. Hey! Where are you going! Come back here!"

Sweets ignored him, ignored his burning lungs and his singed clothing and his burnt skin. He pressed back towards the flames, taking the creaking stairs two at a time. It was stupid, so stupid, but even as his brain blared that over and over all he could think of was Pru, those photographs, all the evidence on earth that his parents had ever been alive.

His apartment was locked. He would have sobbed if his tear ducts hadn't been sucked dry. The doorknob burnt his hand as soon as he touched it, but he'd come this far.

Which was how Lance Sweets, who'd never gone out for so much as the golf team, knocked down his very first door, dislocating the same shoulder he'd dislocated weeks before when Whispering Willows had collapsed.

He didn't even register the pain. He was already tearing madly through the apartment, moving in the direction of the yowling. Unlike the little girl, the cat was making her location well known.

"Pru!" He scooped up the singed and scared cat, getting scratched on his arms, face, neck in the process. She'd taken refuge on the top shelf of the bookcase, the same shelf he kept all the scrapbooks. Sometimes, he really loved cats.

.***.

He woke up in a hospital.

"Jesus, kid, you gotta stop doing this. People will think you're actively trying to kill yourself." Booth stepped away from the window (dark. Late. Details Sweets's brain, even fogged and confused as it was, noted and filed away for future reference.) "I mean, really? Two weeks ago it was getting stuck in an air vent after a building collapsed because you…what? Went back in and saved someone? And now it's nearly being burned alive in your own building after you….went back in to save someone. Now I'm no scientist or psychologist or whatever, but I'm detecting a pattern here."

Sweets closed his eyes, head throbbing. "Water?" he asked, and the smoky, croaky voice that came out of his throat made even the forced smile on Booth's face disappear.

The FBI agent watched as Sweets drank greedily from the straw, face wooden. "The girl's okay, you know." He said at length. "A couple of burns, and she was coughing up a lung last time I saw her, but she'll be fine. Her mother said she wants to meet you, but I convinced her to come by tomorrow. Thought you could use the rest."

Sweets nodded, relief flooding through him at this news. At least he'd managed to save the girl. A tiny spark lit in his chest that had nothing to do with pain and everything to do with the fact that, if it hadn't been for him, a little girl would have died. Tonight, at least, he had made all the difference.

"What are you doing here?" Sweets asked after a minute of silence, glad that his voice didn't sound nearly as bad as before.

"Apparently the person you put down as emergency contact is in Iraq." Booth said, his expression unreadable as he stared down at Sweets, looking quite small in the hospital bed. "And I have a friend at the hospital. She noticed you're FBI and called to ask if I know you. Said you looked lonely."

"I'm fine." Sweets said, wondering how soon he could sign himself out, wondering if he could sleep in his office until he found a new apartment. He closed his eyes slowly and let out a small sigh of despair. "Pru – the cat – she's dead, isn't she?"

"Nah, stubborn thing just caught fire and then clawed me half to death in the car. I dropped her off at Angela's place – she lives nearby. She was all ready to come over and make sure you're okay herself."

Sweets seriously doubted that. Angela was nice to him, but she was nice to everyone in her light, breezy way. Certainly she wouldn't care enough to come over to the hospital in the middle of the night for a few burns.

"The pictures…" Sweets said, and the look that crossed Booth's face was answer enough. His head thunked back against the pillow. The pictures were pure kindling. There was no way they could have survived.

"I'm sorry, Sweets." Booth mumbled. The box had survived, barely, and Booth had taken it and then dropped it off with Angelo along with the cat. He figured that anything important enough for the psychologist to drag out of the fire with him would be important enough to get upset over losing it. "I think this would constitute as a pretty lousy day."

This at least teased a bubble of slightly hysterical laughter from Sweets, which quickly stopped when he started coughing again. When he finally got his ability to breathe back, he lay still on the bed for a while. "I don't know what I'm going to do." He admitted quietly. "I have no family in the city…no friends that live close enough to crash at their apartment. I certainly don't make enough to live out of even the cheapest motel…"

His expression grew more and more anxious when he realized that losing his apartment also meant losing absolutely everything in his life. His clothes, his books, his few childhood mementos that had moved with him from home to college to DC. The loss was staggering, and even though he was thankful that no one was killed, even though he knew that material possessions could be replaced…well, he still kind of wished he had an apartment to go back to every night, with things in it that reminded him of his parents. Perhaps that made him childish, but he was hurt and overwhelmed and being stared at by a man he so respected…

"You can stay with me." Booth said abruptly, cutting off Sweets's spiraling train of thought. "You'll have to promise not to try to kill yourself, even if it is for a good cause, but I have a roof and a bed. You can stay there until you find something."

The gratitude and relief in Sweets's eyes at this unexpected gesture was almost too much to look at, so he just turned away and stared back out the window at the dark shadows of the city, wondering when exactly he started caring so much about this smart, reckless, brave young man.

.***.

**Ah, Booth and Sweets stumbling along in their clueless way. **

**Please, please review.**


	4. Roommates

_Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel. Everyone sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are._ **_Niccolo Machiavelli_**

_**.***.**_

Sweets had never had a roommate.

As the only child of an older couple, he'd had plenty of space, plenty of long silences between easy words that he spent reading or writing or doing whatever else young boys do. When he went to college, he'd exploited every angle until he managed to get a single room, and had pulled the same strings in graduate school. Right after completing his education he'd lived alone in his own apartment, and had never even attempted moving in with a girl (like _that_ was going to happen this decade).

Booth was different entity entirely. He'd shared a room since his brother was born, and then had moved on to sharing a room with a whole bunch of guys in the military. He liked the easy camaraderie that sprang up between roommates, liked the thought that someone was always there when the lights went out.

Sweets was a considerate house guest. The first day after the fire, he was in the hospital, being treated for the burns that covered his neck and arms and chest, but he was released by that afternoon in time to pick up Pru from a concerned Angela.

"Aww, Sweetie," Angela gasped at the sight of his burned and bandaged body. "You're on the news, you know. The woman whose daughter you saved? She's calling you a hero. Was it really bad? Did they save anything from your apartment?"

Sweets shook his head, grateful for the warm weight of the cat in his arms. He stroked her singed fur absentmindedly. "Thanks for taking care of her," he said lamely, "Prudence is kind of important to me."

"She's an affectionate cat. I think I'm going to get one now." Angela said easily, still looking concerned. She brightened up suddenly, and rushed from the room, leaving Sweets and Booth staring at each other, eyebrows raised. "I almost forgot!" Angela's voice drifted in from a nearby room. "I felt so awful about your apartment, and I kind of had the day to myself – well, and the cat – and I just had to do something."

She came back with the book that Sweets had been sure had succumbed to the fire. His eyes widened in complete surprise and Angela looked bashful as she held it out. "Most of the original pictures didn't survive, and the book itself was in pretty bad shape, but I patched it up, doctored some of the pictures…"

Sweets dumped Pru on the floor with the book and wrapped his arms around Angela before she could finish. "Thank you," He said, his voice thick with emotion, "thank you."

.***.

The next day, Sweets was determined to intrude as little as possible on Booth's home. He was just thankful to have a place to crash while he went apartment hunting. Then he woke up early and realized he had no clothes to change into. He supposed he could borrow a shirt from Booth's for today, even though they were very different sizes. Sweets sighed at the prospect of spending the whole day shopping and slipped his suit jacket, mostly in tatters, around his shoulders, mindful of the burns that still stung his skin if chaffed too much.

He covered up without even thinking. He'd been doing it for so long he sometimes forgot it was to hide the scars on his shoulders, the white lines that were a painful and humiliating reminder of those early years he'd just rather forget. When going to the beach or a pool as a child, he'd wear a shirt and laugh about not wanting to get burnt. When other boys stripped to the waist in sweltering summer heat, he'd let them believe he was self-conscious about his skinny body, not about the marks on his back.

Booth wasn't up yet, and he was glad for the kitchen to himself. The one meal Sweets really knew how to make was breakfast. Pru jumped on the counter and batted one of the eggs with her paw, and Sweets hastily broke it in a pan before it had the chance to fall to the floor. He cut up some ham he found in the fridge and grated an old block of cheese, thankful for all the ingredients required to make his perfect omelet.

By the time he was buttering the toast, the jacket had slipped to the floor, and Sweets was bobbing his head to the radio, turned down low and tuned in to a country station that somehow always reminded him of church and Sundays with his mother. He was just flipping the last omelet when he heard a soft sound behind him.

Sweets whipped around, spatula in hand, too quickly for Booth to have time to wipe the surprised horror off his face. Sweets saw his expression, and his soft brown eyes shuttered shut. His whole body drooped, like a plant left unwatered, unwanted. "You saw."

And things started clicking for Booth. Sweets's earnest need to get all the gory facts about Booth and Bones's childhoods, the way he dodged questions about his own as smoothly as any politician, the way Booth realized, just this moment, that he never took off his shirt, even when it was hot and other men had already discarded their own shirts.

There was so much humiliation spread across Sweets's expressive face that Booth felt like he needed to say something, like if he didn't talk right this minute everything was going to fester and boil and Sweets would be lost to him. So he did something he rarely did: he opened up.

"Jared has the same scars," Booth said after an awkward minute. He cleared his throat and leaned over the counter. Two steaming omelets and four slices of toast lay forgotten to the side. Sweets was staring at him, eyes wide, and Booth realized in that minute just how very young this psychologist was. "That's why we lived with my grandfather."

"Agent Booth, you don't have to say anything," Sweets began, embarassed, but Booth waved this away, thinking of the long, twisted scars that snaked across Sweets's shoulders, somehow more terrible than the new shiny burns that extended across his torso.

"I was supposed to be at home. I was always at home by the time dad was there because…well, you know." Sweets nodded. He knew some of these sordid tales. Booth, Brennan, and he all shared horrid pasts, though up until right this moment he'd been the only person in the world to know of that particular connection.

"Well, I wasn't there. The bus I was taking had broken down and…and if I'd known I would have run the three miles home, but I thought it would be okay. It was just a half-hour…" Booth circled around Sweets, no longer staring at his face, and the psychologist shivered when he felt a shaking finger trace the lattice of scars that spilled across his shoulders.

He didn't speak. Once, a professor had told him that people having flashbacks was a lot like people who sleepwalk. If you startle them in the middle of it, sometimes bad shit happened.

"When I got home, Jared was on the floor. Unconscious. Not much more you can expect from a nine-year-old, and the blood…there was so much blood…it distracted me enough that I didn't even realize that dad wasn't there until I was at the hospital. By then I didn't care." Booth jerked his hand away from Sweets's skin and the younger man let out a sigh of relief, scooting forward and putting a few inches of space between them.

Now he was facing Booth, and the FBI agent's eyes were wide and compassionate. "He has six marks. I know because I counted them for…oh, years I guess. I thought six was bad."

Sweets shrugged the coat back on, ignoring the protest from his burns. Pru mewed weakly, rubbing her velvet head against the back of Sweets's hand. Giving him courage.

"You were so worried about those pictures." Booth mused, tapping his fingers against the counter. "And you were so happy when Angela gave them back to you…I never even thought…"

"My parents _never_ hurt me." Sweets said, quiet, dangerously quiet, feeling his hackles raise in automatic protection of the people who had, quite literally, saved his life. "They _loved_ me."

Booth was surprised, but years of military and FBI training had made sure that this didn't show on his face. "Who hurt you, Sweets? Because I gotta be honest with you here, I've had a pretty lousy couple of months and kicking the crap out of someone must be good for my emotional state, right?"

Sweets actually smiled at that. "My…my biological father is very safely in prison, Agent Booth, though thank you for the kind offer. When his parole comes up you'll be the first person I call."

"Hey," Booth said, his hand reaching out and clutching Sweets's wrist. He did this a lot – touched someone's hand or leg or arm, just to get their attention, just to know that they were listening. Sweets closed his eyes at the touch, willed himself not to jump.

When he opened his eyes again he saw that Booth knew exactly how much Sweets wanted to bolt from the room. His grip tightened, though in a way that was comforting, secure, rather than suffocating. "If that bastard ever gets out of prison, you tell me. First thing. I don't care if it's thirty years from now and you think you've actually hit puberty. I've always regretted not protecting Jared. I'm not going to let something happen to you."

Sweets wrapped the jacket more securely around his body and looked away hurriedly. "Okay, Agent Booth." He said submissively, inching the omelet and toast closer to the bigger man, who turned abruptly andput hands on his hips, breathing hard as if dredging up these memories was physically difficult.

And Sweets just stared at him, wondering if Seeley Booth, FBI Agent, had meant to compare him, Lance Sweets, an annoying wunderkind psychologist, to his kid brother.

.***.

**Review?**


	5. Fathers

_Lost was the child, we all once did hide. There but for the Grace of God go I. **Anon**_

_**.***.**_

They remained roommates for those strange months after the whole debacle with Zack, and eventually they settled into a routine. Sweets would let Booth re-bandage his burns and check his stitches as long as he made no comments about the older scars that littered his shoulders. Booth would help Sweets on those odd, unexpected occasions when the younger man turned ghastly white after pulling at barely-healed skin, but only if the psychologist didn't analyze his every move.

Strangely, it turned out that they were good for each other. Booth's expansive personality and easy good cheer brought out the same, mostly dormant characteristics in Sweets, who found that he liked being around the FBI agent very much. Booth, on the other hand, learned how to hold his own against Sweets's sharp mind and biting, tongue-in-cheek wit, and was even caught once or twice surreptitiously reading APA Monitor on Psychology to keep up with his roommate's discussions.

Soon enough, Sweets stopped talking about finding an apartment and Booth kept his mouth closed about reminding him. Two weeks passed, and the burns were now pink patches covering Sweets's skin. Another week, and every trace of the incident at Whispering Willows was gone.

It was shaping up to be an indefinite living situation. Sweets bought a picture frame and hung it on the wall, and got a few clothes and stuck them in the closet. Pru had definitely made herself at home, and had taken a shining to Booth that made Sweets slightly jealous.

Everything might have been okay if Sweets hadn't gotten the phone call, if Booth hadn't gone out to meet an old army buddy, leaving the younger man with overdue paperwork and interesting profiles to do for other agents.

When the phone rang, Sweets answered it without really thinking, too intent on the serial killer he was trying to label. He still had the folder in his hand when he picked up the phone, and didn't really think twice about the fact that there was no one on the other end. He went back to the profile, call forgotten.

The second time it happened was a half hour later, when Sweets was making a sandwich, padding around the kitchen in only a pair of sweats, glad for the opportunity to take his shirt off. No matter how many times Booth sighed at Sweets's embarrassment over his scars, the young man could not get over his old habit of never going shirtless, of not even looking at his own back in a mirror. As long as no one looked at him strangely, as long as he didn't see them, then he could forget about the scars and those first terrible years completely.

Anyway, the point is that Sweets was making a sandwich the phone rang again. This time he was more alert, and repeated his hello twice, three times, before hanging up. He linked the two calls in his mind but dismissed it as a prank, as kids being kids.

Turns out, it was the person he always referred to as his "bio-dad." Paul had been out of jail for three months now, and the prison had tried to find Sweets to tell him but could only trace him as far as college, probably because Sweets had left the state, traveled, and then finally settled down five hundred miles away. It wasn't the prison's fault, not really. They would have tried harder, but Paul had been incarcerated for fifteen years, was a model prisoner, got time off for good behavior, was seeing both a shrink and a priest, the whole nine yards.

Turns out, Paul had been waiting fifteen years to put Sweets six feet under. After all, it was seven-year-old Lance, with his lisp and big eyes and small, nearly emaciated body, that had put him in jail in the first place. Paul searched longer and harder than the prison. Found Sweets's old apartment and talked to a neighbor, the same guy who'd dialed 9-1-1. It was the neighbor who mentioned something about the FBI, about an agent.

Turns out, Paul was pretty good at finding stuff out. He was tall, taller than Sweets by two inches, and heavier by more than a hundred pounds, but he had a face that made people believe he was either very kind or rather simple. He asked people politely and they told him that Lance Sweets and Seeley Booth had been living in an odd-couple relationship for nearly a month now. Paul thanked them all and went to lie in wait.

When he heard his son's voice over the phone, he got excited. Excited and angry and itching for blood, for the feel of fine bones breaking in his hands. And the expression on Lance's face when he opened the door and found his father? Priceless.

"Hiya son." Was all he said, and then socked him across the face.

Paul wasn't really thinking about consequences. Prison wasn't too bad once you got used to it, and it might be damned comfortable if he knew the snot-nosed kid that put him there was dead. So he didn't think twice about kicking the crap out of his son in an FBI agent's apartment.

The floor that was littered with Sweets's work was soon spattered with blood, too, as Paul's meaty fists tore open Sweets's lip, broke his teeth, his nose… "You understand these fancy words, son? Think you're better than your old man?" That's when Lance's shirt tore.

"Nice burns there, kid. You look like a fucking leper." More punches, and Sweets wasn't so much trying to defend himself as he was struggling to hold onto consciousness. When he bent double with a blow to the gut, Paul saw them. And they only egged him on. "Still got those old scars? My last gift to you, kid. Hope you appreciate it."

"Fuck you." Sweets muttered straightening up and breaking Paul's nose with a punch Booth would have been damn proud of. It was the last thing he did.

The knife was produced next, and Paul felt a peculiar sort of pleasure, carving a word into Sweets's back, watching the blood bloom, not really caring was muscles or nerves he severed as he dug the knife in deeper. "You always were a creepy kid. Scared the shit out of your mother when you started reading and doing all those fancy math things before most kids could use the damn toilet. Probably the reason she drank herself to death." He said this all quite happily, standing over his son's now limp and bleeding body. Soon enough, Lance Sweets would be dead, and as much fun as prison was, Paul wasn't going to make it any easier for the cops to catch him.

The last thing he did before he left the apartment was stab his knife through the picture of Lance with that old grey couple that took the freak from the state. Something for the world to remember him by. Paul closed the apartment door just as the phone began to ring.

.***.

Somehow, Sweets managed to pick up the phone. "Sweets?" It was Booth. Sweets almost cried in relief. In fact, he was crying, but with pain, and shock. The whole ordeal had taken less than three minutes. He was going to die because of what happened in less than three minutes. "Sweets, you there?"

"Help me…" Sweets said, his voice coming out as a whisper, a sob, but it got the message across.

Booth had been calling to say that he and his army buddy were going to be out late, but he forgot his key so could Sweets not lock the door? Now he sat bolt upright, and his army buddy with a beer in one hand and a redhead in the other looked at him. "Sweets, are you alright? What's up?"

"Please." And then the line went dead. Booth stared at the phone incredulously for one second – couldn't this kid catch a break? – but then he was out of his chair, throwing a twenty down on the table as he ran out the door.

.***.

The apartment didn't have flames coming from it, which Booth could only assume was a good thing. In fact, it looked peaceful. The door was intact, and unlocked, and Booth pushed it open, hoping that Sweets had sliced his hand open, twisted his ankle, something _normal_.

"Oh my God." Booth, a religious man, saw Sweets's body and prayed to God that he wasn't dead. "Sweets? Oh, God. Lance? Sweets? C'mon, buddy. C'mon."

Sweets looked quite dead. His shirt had been torn from his body and he was on his stomach with blood pooling in the crevice made by his spine, all flowing from the letters that had been etched into his back. F-R-E-A-K.

Strangely, the first thing Booth thought was that now the kid would never take his shirt off.

The second thing he thought was that an ambulance needed to be here five minutes ago.

He dialed while turning Sweets over so he could see the bruises on his torso, mostly covering the burns that had just been starting to heal. He put a hand on the younger man's cheek his throat, his chest, and was just breathing out a sigh of relief when the operator picked up. He nearly shouted his need for an ambulance, his address, and then threw down the phone despite the fact that the operator had told him to stay on the line. Somebody needed him more.

"Sweets? Open your eyes, kid. Sweets? You're okay. You're going to be okay."

But Sweets never opened his eyes, and Booth found himself sitting in his trashed apartment holding the dying psychologist in his arms, wondering how the hell this kid's life had gotten worse.

.***.

**Review?**


	6. Coffee

___"Understanding is the first key to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery."_******Dumbledore**

.***.

Hodgins hovered in the doorway to Sweets's office, watching the younger man with the shuttered eyes. Of course he knew what had happened between Sweets and his father, and then a whole story had come out after that about abuse and adoption, about redemption and revenge. And Hodgins had listened to this story, delivered in a low, rage-filled voice by Booth, and felt the sick twist of guilt begin in his gut.

They'd all been so quick to assume certain things about Sweets. Young and ambitious, everyone at the Jeffersonian and the FBI had jumped to the conclusion that he'd had a normal childhood: grew up in white suburbia with parents that he'd probably hated by the time he left home. Smarter than average, most likely graduated high school early. Nerdy. Clingy. Annoying.

None of them had ever thought of Sweets as a survivor, as the quiet guy in the background who ends up stealing the show, getting the girl, being the hero. And that's who Sweets _was_. And Hodgins was kicking himself for not recognizing that.

"Hey, Sweets." He called, knocking on the already open door with the back of one hand.

Sweets jumped, then winced, biting back a scream, and finally managed to stand up and smile. "Hello, Dr. Hodgins, what -"

"Sit down, kid, you look like you're going to keel over." And he did. Sweets was swaying slightly, and though the physical wounds had been patched and covered by clothes (except for the bruises that stood stark and ugly on the young man's expressive face) Hodgins knew they were there, and he knew that they hurt.

Sweets sat gingerly in the chair, doing his damndest to arrange his face in an expression that would appear natural. He tilted his head upward, resting his chin on the tips of his long, pale fingers, and if it hadn't been for the black eyes, the wary eyes, Hodgins might have believed that everything was a-OK.

"I was just wondering…" Hodgins began, feeling extremely awkward now that he was here, in this room, talking to the guy he'd been meaning to pull aside all day. "Would you like to get a couple of drinks?"

Sweets bit his lip and looked away, which was definitely not the reaction Hodgins was looking for. "The hospital kind of recommended staying away from alcohol."

"Coffee, then." The kid looked like he was about to decline again, so Hodgins rushed forward, "I know this out of the way place, not at all crowded, and I'm only asking for one hour. It's either me or the girls, and I don't think you want Angela to smother you in pity of Dr. Brennan to turn the psychoanalyzing against you right now."

"I didn't mean to avoid them."

"You did. That's okay. They get it." Hodgins spread his arms. "Look, I think I'm your best bet right now. Why not have a cup of coffee with me?"

When he was younger, Sweets's parents would tease him about his obsessive need for a schedule. It was nothing elaborate, not like he always needed to have a book on him or anything. He just liked knowing what was going on, and nothing would make him more nervous than waking up in the morning and not knowing the exact arrangements of the day. He especially hated having his plans derailed, like they were being derailed right now.

"One cup." He agreed hesitantly, standing up again. This time, Hodgins moved forward and grabbed his arm, guiding him to his feet. And, strangely enough, the touch didn't make Sweets lash out like he had this morning when Booth, worried, had shaken him after the alarm had blared three times. Then, Sweets had thrown an arm up over his face, cowering, crying, and Booth had looked surprised and so damn _hurt_ that Sweets felt a deep shame that he hadn't felt since he was very, very young.

The out of the way place turned out to be Hodgins's house/mansion/manor that Sweets had known about, of course, he had the file, but had never seen. It was impressive, and intimidating.

Somehow, though, the kitchen managed to be a cozy thing, with a breakfast nook that had a large bay window that beautifully showcased the rising orange moon of late August. Lance cradled in the tea in his hands, staring into its depths as if the answers he craved could be found somewhere down there.

Uncharacteristically, Hodgins said nothing, merely slid an entomology journal close to him and took a sip of his own drink – designer coffee with exotic beans, but you had to forgive the man this small extravagance. He didn't read the article, though – every follicle of his being was on end, waiting for Sweets to say something.

And finally the younger man's instincts as a psychologist, the need to fill oppressive silence with something constructive, won over. "Booth has been…different…since the…" He didn't say anything, just gestured at the bruises that still littered his face and body. It was enough. "Before he'd started calling me Doogie Howser. I'm assuming it was another joke about my age. I didn't even know who that was."

"That's just proving his point, kid." Hodgins said, shaking his head and smiling slightly.

"Yeah, well, he was teasing me. Comfortable with me. And then my father showed up and suddenly he's leaving rooms as soon as I walk in and looking at me like I'm a…pariah. I've tried to analyze his actions, and I've come to the conclusion that my injuries are a painful reminder of Booth's own past. I've been looking for other living arrangements."

"And have you discussed any of this with Booth?" Hodgins put his expensive coffee down, brow furrowing. "Because I'm pretty sure your analysis is off."

'I don't see how it can be. His reactions are perfectly rational." Sweets ran a hand through his hair, wincing as it connected with bruises. He'd sworn not to succumb to that particular nervous habit until the welts had faded more. "I just…I thought we were becoming friends. After Gormogon, when he arrested me, I was sure I was going to apply for a transfer and leave Washington, but then there was Whispering Willows, and my apartment burning down, and my father, and -"

"This has not been a good summer for you." Hodgins said, his smile sad. He leaned forward, "Sweets, Booth is avoiding you because every time he sees the bruises he remembers that they never found that monster that beat you up, and he blames himself for that."

This was a revelation to Sweets, who had been blaming himself for that night so much that he never even thought that others might be toting the same gun. "But that's not his fault! Booth worked longer and harder than anyone to find my…to find the man who… I don't blame Booth! It was my fault for being negligent. If I'd alerted the prison to my change of address after the death of my parents I would have been notified of his parole. I just didn't expect him to be out for another five years."

"Listen to me, Sweets." Hodgins said, impulsively holding Sweets's hand, feeling the muscles automatically tense in his grip. He kept his eyes on the therapist though – this was it. Fight or flight. Stay and talk it out or make excuses and run. Honestly, Hodgins couldn't blame Sweets if he wanted to run. He couldn't imagine facing a past like the one that had just come back to slap this young man across the face.

He waited until he was sure Sweets was staying before he began, "When you first showed up at the Jeffersonian I didn't like you, Sweets."

This was obviously not what the psychologist was expecting to come out of the entomologist's mouth, and he jerked his hand away, hurt flashing across his face. Hodgins continued quickly, words tripping over each other in their haste to make amends. "Well, think about it. You were some smart-ass guy coming in looking like a kid playing dress-up with his father's clothes – I saw that smile, Sweets. The age jokes are kind of funny."

"Dr. Hodgins, I've been the youngest person in the room since I was ten. There is literally no joke about my age that I have not heard a dozen times before." But it was undeniable that Sweets was smiling a little, even as he tried to steer them back on point like the good psychologist he was. "You were saying how much you hated me…?"

"Not liking you is not the same as hating you." Sweets brightened up a little and Hodgins groaned. "Those bruises make you look truly pathetic, by the way…anyway, you were annoying, and you were butting in, and for a long, long time I didn't like you. Being arrested for murder didn't help, especially since we all thought you'd hurt Zack, too."

Here Sweets wilted, staring at the now-empty cup of tea before raising earnest eyes to meet Hodgins's. "I would never hurt Zack or any of you. I could never hurt anyone. When I was little my dad – that's Peter Sweets – he used to tell me to stick up for myself, punch if I'd been punched, you know? But I was never good at that. I was always afraid of hurting someone, and of looking like a bully."

Hodgins didn't think he'd ever known anyone less like a bully in his life than the broken, mild-mannered, sweet-tempered lanky young man in front of him. And it was with those words that the entomologist realized that this had been an acquired trait, an active search to change a character, for Sweets had been so determined to distance himself from his father that he didn't allow himself to share even the most basic character traits.

"I still think I need to find another place to live. I'd be putting Agent Booth in danger if I continued to live in his apartment. What if Paul comes back and Booth is there? He is going to be pissed once he learns he didn't kill me."

Something flashed across Hodgins's face and he leaned forward, anxiety and concern dripping from his words. "Kid, you need to tell Booth this. Please. Before you consider buying a new place, before you start hunting for another apartment while you're all wrapped up in casts, just talk to him. Tell him what you told me." He grabbed Sweets's hand, and this time the psychologist didn't flinch or jerk away.

"You're annoying and a pain in the ass, kid, but damnit if we all don't love you to death after what we've been through together. Booth too, man. Don't do anything reckless. Do you want Angela and Dr. Brennan attending your funeral?"

Sweets managed a tight smile and squeezed Hodgins's hand, touched that the man had reached out to him, touched that he'd been touched, touched at the words that had love woven through them so obviously Lance felt like he was glowing from the inside.

.***.

**Review?**


	7. Taxi Cab Endings

_"**Bilbo**: Have you thought of an ending? _  
_**Frodo**: Yes, several, and all are dark and unpleasant. _  
_**Bilbo**: Oh, that won't do! Books ought to have good endings. How would this do: _and they all settled down and lived together happily ever after?  
_**Frodo**: It will do well, if it ever came to that. _  
_**Sam**: Ah! And where will they live? That's what I often wonder." _

.***.

It was September, that month when the streets of DC was filled suddenly, magically, with yellow school buses. The month that Lance Sweets had always thought of as the end of summer. He had to admit that this year he was painfully happy about seeing the summer come to an end.

He stepped out of the shower and looked at himself in the mirror. It was something he didn't do very often, having avoided mirrors on principle from a young age. But now he looked. Really looked.

You couldn't see a scar from his shoulder, but sometimes he'd wake up in the middle of the night and feel like it had fallen out of its socket again. Feel like his whole body was out of place. But he didn't regret what he did at Whispering Willows, not one bit.

There was still a faint scar from his birthday, that day he'd been nearly strangled to death by a felon. It was behind his chin, and you could only really see it if he was looking up at something. Surprisingly, sadly, that was not the worst birthday he'd ever had.

And then the burns. The docs had said that he would probably never completely heal from the fire that had taken his apartment, though one burn nurse had said, sternly, that it would not have been nearly so bad if he hadn't gone back into the fire. What could he say? He'd needed to save those pictures. He'd needed to save his cat. They were the only things he had left of his parents.

The scars from Paul (he'd stopped being _father_ a long time ago) were the worst, and had had the least time to heal. He turned so he could see his back, see the FREAK carved between the other scars Paul had left him. He frowned slightly and buttoned up his shirt, hiding everything. Hiding the evidence of the summer.

He went into the kitchen where Booth was eating a piece of toast and swatting at Pru, who had taken such an immense liking to the FBI agent that Sweets was starting to feel a little jealous. He stopped when Sweets came in and cleared his throat. "You don't have to do this."

"I do. I really do." There was no longer a coffee table in Booth's apartment because of him, and the couch had been moved to cover the bloodstain that refused to come out of the floor. Booth swore that he would install a new carpet one of these days. "You've been so good to me, Agent Booth, and I'm sorry for everything."

"Don't be sorry," Booth said fiercely. "Don't be sorry. You did nothing wrong."

"Still. You went through a lot of trouble this summer because of me. Thank you." Sweets put out his hand and Booth grasped it between both his own, looking worried.

"Sweets," he began slowly, letting each word form completely in his mouth before letting it go. "You know that we…we care about you. Me included."

"I've lived by myself for quite awhile, Agent Booth," Sweets said, quirking a sad smile, "I'm an independent person, even if I do look twelve."

"I know that," Booth said quickly, "It's just…you don't have to do it all alone. I know you got used to it ever since your parents died, but you don't have to do everything alone. Especially if people want to help you."

There was something hidden in those words, and if Sweets hadn't been teetering on his last nerve he would have delved into it. Instead he ducked his head, hoisted a box onto his hip, too Pru from the counter. "There's a cab waiting for me outside." He couldn't think of what else to say so he left it at that. Booth didn't try to stop him.

It was painfully sad how it happened. The absolute bad timing of it all. How Sweets had been staring morosely out the window of his cab one second and the next he'd slammed into the seat in front of him, hands automatically forming a safe cage for Pru. This cat wasn't going to die. Not if he had anything to say about it.

The accident wasn't a bad one. Little more than a fender bender four blocks from Booth's apartment, but Sweets took it as a sign. He waved away the EMS help but allowed one to put a large Band-Aid on his forehead. The other cuts they could do nothing about. Sweets asked if they had anything that might calm Pru, who was doing more damage to his neck and arms than the accident had, and one of the young guys had told him that they weren't vets, and maybe he should find one.

Sighing, Sweets headed back to Booth's apartment, knowing that the next conversation was going to be bad. He knocked on the door, letting Pru's yowling be the thing to announce their entrance.

"You forget something, Sweets – oh my God!" Booth grabbed Sweets by the shoulders sending Pru running for safer grounds, heading for the bookshelf. Sending the box with all his worldly possessions flying. "I leave you alone for five minutes -! What happened? Who did this?"

"Just a fender bender, Agent Booth. Please stop shaking me." Sweets felt dizzy, like he needed some Asprin and a couple hours sleep even though he'd just woken up not long before.

Booth stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Sorry."

Sweets leaned against the doorframe and wrapped his arms around his body. He stared at the light fixture for a long time as his entire body throbbed dully. Then, after three or four minutes, he forced himself to look over at Booth who hadn't moved from his spot three feet away. "You believe in God, right?"

"Yeah."

"Me too." Sweets said, letting out his breath, then smiling when he saw Booth's expression. "Really. My mom and dad were big into their church. We'd hold functions at the house. I was an altar boy for a couple of years in high school." Sweets glanced in the mirror and shook at the sight of his reflection. He had a black eye, and blood was running sluggishly down from a cut near his eyebrow. "I think God hates me."

"Sweets…" Booth began.

But he couldn't stop this. Every feeling that had accumulated over the long, horrid summer burst out of Sweets's mouth at once and he was –not yelling, he never shouted. Never. But he was talking quick and his voice was high and he couldn't be stopped.

"I did everything I was supposed to, Agent Booth. When I was little I was super polite in all my foster homes in hopes that someone would want me. When my parents realized I was a genius I went to high school when I was eleven even though all my friends were years behind me. When the FBI assigned me to your case, I tried everything I could to help you and Dr. Brennan and the Jeffersonian.

"And look what happened! I got arrested for a crime I didn't commit. I was burnt, strangled, and stabbed – twice! – this summer. My parents are dead, and I'm so young that no one in the FBI takes me seriously. And when I try to be independent again, try to get some of my life back, I was in a goddamn car accident!" He balled his hands into fists and felt his nails biting into his skin. That was okay. As long as he wasn't about to break down and cry in front of the only man he really wanted to impress, everything was okay.

"Sweets…" Booth began, reaching out, but Sweets shrank back as Booth had suspected he would. The psychologist had been shying away from any form of affection since the attack by his birth father. "Sweets, you don't have to leave."

"You've been so kind to me, Agent Booth, but I am determined not to overstay my welcome."

"I don't think you get it." Booth turned his back on Sweets, stalked off to the bathroom and rummaged around until he found some Neosporin and a couple of Band-Aids. He reached for Sweets's chin and this time the younger man didn't back away but stared at him determinedly. Booth kept his smirk to himself, thinking _good for him_. "I'm not going to let you leave."

"Kidnapping is a federal offense."

"Good thing I'm a federal agent."

"I don't think it works like that." Sweets said, wincing as Booth probed his cut.

"Sweets…" Booth said, recalling a strange conversation he'd had with Hodgins days before, when the entomologist had waylaid him in the lobby and demanded that he make sure Sweets was alright. "I like having a roommate, okay? Makes the place seem more like home."

"You'll get a girlfriend. I'll get a girlfriend. There's a reason people don't usually have roommates after college."

"If one of us does, we can talk. But until then…might as well help each other out, right? Obviously, the universe is working against you and does not want you to get your own apartment." Sweets let out a hoarse laugh but didn't bother denying it. "And I've always had either my brother or the army sleeping under the same roof. For me, having a roommate is my default position."

Sweets still looked unconvinced so Booth put a hand on his shoulder and steered him towards the kitchen. "Like you said, Sweets, we started off this summer with me finding you wedged in an air duct with a hole in your belly and your arm hanging out. Then you were strangled and your apartment burned down and your biological father tried very hard to kill you. And you did a good job handling it. A great job. You're one of the most resilient guys I know.

"But Sweets, wouldn't it be great to not have to do everything by yourself anymore?"

Sweets nodded, because he didn't trust himself to speak, not yet. He looked around the apartment, at his cat, who was already making herself quite comfortable on the couch, at Booth, staring at him, urging him to take the offer. "How can I say no?" He said, smiling, truly smiling, for the first time in a long, long time.

.***.

**the end.**

**we loved this story, we really did, but we couldn't do much more to sweets without feeling like we were beating up on him (ha). a million thanks to everyone who reviewed. we loved them all.**


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